ng away
with the stampeded stock from the corral. And now and again there was
a massacre.

Under Mangus Colorado, whom historians account their greatest
war-chief, the Apaches were busy in New Mexico and Arizona. They
worked more carefully than their Texan cousins, and there was a gorge
along the line in that section which got the name of Doubtful canyon
because the only thing a driver could count on there with any
certainty was a fight before he got through to the other side.

Nor were the Indians the only savage men in that wilderness. Arizona
was becoming a haven for fugitives from California vigilance
committees and for renegade Mexicans from south of the boundary. The
road-agents went to work along the route, and near Tucson they did a
thriving business.

Yet with all these enemies and obstacles, it is a matter of record
that the Butterfield overland mail was only late three times.

In spite of runaways, bad roads, floods, sand-storms, battles, and
hold-ups, the east and west bound stages usually made the distance
in twenty-one days. And there was a long period during 1859 when
the two mails--which had started on the same day from the two
termini--met each other at exactly the half-way point. Apparently
the Wells-Butterfield interests had won the struggle. Service was
increased to a daily basis and the compensation was doubled. The
additional load was handled with the same efficiency that had been
shown in the beginning.

It is hard, in these days of steam and gasolene and electricity, to
understand how men did such things with horse-flesh. The quality of
the men themselves explains that. One can judge that quality by an
affair which took place at Stein's Pass.

"Steen's Pass," as the old-timers spelled it--and as the name is still
pronounced--is a gap in the mountains just west of Lordsburg, New
Mexico. The Southern Pacific comes through it to-day. One afternoon
Mangus Colorado and Cochise were in the neighborhood with six hundred
Apache warriors, when a smoke signal from distant scouts told them
that the overland stage was approaching without an armed escort. The
two chieftains posted their naked followers behind the rocks and
awaited the arrival of their victims.

When one remembers that such generals as Crook have expressed their
admiration for the strategy of Cochise, and that Mangus Colorado was
the man who taught him, one will realize that Stein's Pass, which is
admirably suited for all purposes of